The ΚΛΙΜΑΤΑ In Greek Geography

D. R. Dicks

doi:10.1017/S0009838800011538

The ΚΛΙΜΑΤΑ In Greek Geography

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

D. R. Dicks

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The climata played an important role in Greek geography. As used in the mathematical geography of Hipparchus and Ptolemy the word denotes a narrow belt or strip of land, 400 stades wide, on each side of a parallel of latitude; inhabitants of the same clitma were assumed to be situated in the same geographical latitude, since, for practical purposes, the celestial phenomena, lengths of the longest and shortest days, and general climatic conditions did not change appreciably within this distance. We may compare the modern conception of arbitrary zones each possessing its own standard time; but whereas these are belts of longitude contiguous to each other, the climata were belts of latitude not necessarily contiguous.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 3-4 , December 1955 , pp. 248 - 255

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800011538 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1955

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References

¹ Honigmann, E., Die sieben Klimata und die , 1929.Google Scholar

² Gnomon, 1933, pp. 95–101.

³ Cf. Diller, A., ‘Geographical Latitudes in Eratosthenes, Hipparchus and Posidonius’, Klio, xxvii (1934), 258–69Google Scholar; and the same author, ‘The Parallels on the Ptolemaic Maps’, Isis, xxxiii (1941), 4–7.Google Scholar

⁴ This is Gisinger's view (loc. cit.), and cf. Thomson, J. O., History of Ancient Geography, 1948, p. 116.Google Scholar

⁵ Cf. Str. 62.

⁶ Cf. Str. 7.

⁷ Ptol. Geogr. 1. 4. 2.

⁸ Str. 94.

¹ Cycl. Theor. I. 4: ed. Ziegler, (Teubner), 1891Google Scholar—other citations are all by page and line of this edition.

² Ed. Heiberg (Teubner), 1898–1907; the citations are all by page and line of the first volume of this edition.

³ Ed. Manitius (Teubner), 1894. This Commentary was probably written before Hipparchus turned his attention to criticizing Eratosthenes' geographical work.

⁴ Ed. Manitius (Teubner), 1898.

¹ Loeb Strabo, vol. i, pp. 100–I, n. I.

² Cf. Bunbury, , History of Ancient Geography, vol. i, pp. 33ff.Google Scholar

³ Cf. Gemin., pp. 62. 24; 170. 11; Proclus, Sphaer., cap. 11.

¹ Gisinger, , loc. cit., pp. 96–97Google Scholar, also notes this.

² Ed. Heiberg, vol. iii, p. 4. 3:

³ It is true that the table in cap. 13 is drawn up for these same seven parallels, but there is no actual mention of and die only reason for their choice here is that they effectively spanned the known world; as usual, Ptolemy describes them indifferently as 172. 7, or , 172. 10 and 16.

⁴ Nat. Hist. 6. 211, ‘his addemus etiamnum unam Graecae inventionis sententiam vel exquisitissimae subtilitatis …’; 212, ‘Plura sunt autem segmenta mundi quae nostri circulos appellavere, Graeci paral- lelos’.

⁵ Op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 438 and 441–2Google Scholar

⁶ Isag. 19.

¹ On this see further p. 254, n. 2 below. The figure of 400 stades for the width of a clima was only an approximation permissible in geographical work because the standard of accuracy was far less than in astronomical work; this was owing to the lack of accurate latitude observations for a sufficiently large number of places, and the complete dearth of longitude measurements (cf. Ptol. Geogr. 1. 4. 2). Both Eratosthenes and Hipparchus knew that in actual fact gnomon measurements, for example, would show a perceptible difference within 400 stades.

² I hope to discuss this passage in greater detail in another paper. Strabo's account is unsatisfactory on several points, and there is good reason to suspect that he has here confused two separate tables of Hipparchus—one, a table of some fourteen climata which were all that Hipparchus regarded as being based on trustworthy data, and the other a purely theoretical table giving astronomical information for different latitudes from the equator to the North Pole.

¹ Cf. Thalamas, A., La Géographie d'Ératosthène, 1921, pp. 239 ff.Google Scholar

² Berger, E. H., Die geographischen Fragmente des Eratosthenes, 1880, pp. 191–2, n. 2.Google Scholar

³ Ad Att. 2. 6.

⁴ As one of the authors consulted for books 2, 4, and 5 of the Natural History.

⁵ Hephaest, ., de duodec. nom. et effect, (ed. Engelbrecht), pp. 47. 20Google Scholar; 60. 30.

¹ Op. cit., pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

² Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. Müller, vol. i, pp. 196–237. The lines are: Google Scholar

It is noteworthy that this is the only passage where the name of Eratosthenes is directly connected with the climata. Liddell and Scott (v. ) is misleading here; under the heading ‘4. seven latitudinal strips in the on which the longest day ranged by half-hour intervals from 13 to 16 hours’, it cites Eratosth. ap. Str. 2. 1. 35, 2. 5. 34, followed by references to Geminus, Posidonius, Marinus, and Ptolemy. As I have shown above there is no real evidence for these seven climata as a particular doctrine in itself until after the time of Ptolemy; they were merely the ones which happened to span the best known part of the Moreover, in the first passage cited for Eratosthenes in Strabo, it is not the former but the latter who is talking about the climata: apropos of Hipparchus’ pointing out that according to Eratosthenes himself differences of latitude were detectable even within 400 stades —note the use of the word , not ), Strabo says, speaking ex cathedra, that this is true for exact gnomon measurements, but the geographer dealing with large distances can be allowed to ignore this. The second passage cited begins with the quotation I have put at the head of this paper, and it is Hipparchus whose name is directly connected with the climata, not Eratosthenes. In fact, in this whole section of Strabo's work (34), Eratosthenes is mentioned once only, where it is stated that his figure for the circumference of the earth (252,000 stades) was used by Hipparchus also.